


Forging the Future

by JM_Winters



Series: Mirrored Frustrations [3]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Amaya/Janai is more hinted at, Character Study, F/F, Gen, Other, Viren/Sarai/Harrow if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24514699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JM_Winters/pseuds/JM_Winters
Summary: Amaya learns that the people of Xadia are not monstersViren sees the monstrosity in everything but himself
Relationships: Amaya/Janai (The Dragon Prince), Harrow/Sarai (The Dragon Prince)
Series: Mirrored Frustrations [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714273
Comments: 11
Kudos: 31





	1. Amaya: seeing humanity in a moment of compassion

**Author's Note:**

> Got so caught up in She-Ra:POP that I almost forgot I hadn’t posted my last little character study (at least for now) over here. But here it is.
> 
> I actually really, really like the first chapter for this. It was a challenge trying to convey two characters who would be dealing with a massive communication barrier somehow finding a deep understanding about each other. 
> 
> Janai not knowing human languages — the show mostly hand waves this for talking, and makes it clear she doesn’t know sign language, but I felt it would also make sense if Katolian wouldn’t be her first language. And that made me realize, if that was the case, writing a language is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of gaining fluency in it. People often can read, speak and comprehend (both written and oral) way more than they can write another language they aren’t fluent in.
> 
> But I also wanted to have the challenge of Janai wanting to personally approach Amaya. She doesn’t strike me as the sort who would feel she could have the conversation she needed to with Amaya if they have a third party, and this would present...unique challenges in their communication. I hope I portrayed this well.

The first time she saw a familiar Elven warrior burst through the ring of flames, Amaya noticed the mixed signals she sent.

The Elven warrior glowed red as she stood over Amaya, her posture, her gaze suggesting fury. Amaya however sensed something else, something that the elf didn’t want to admit. Something that caught Amaya’s attention and held onto it as the General watched carefully, trying to unwrap the reason for this dissonance. Trying to unwrap the motivation behind the Elven warrior putting up what seemed to be a front.

Since Amaya was a small child who was already losing much of what hearing she was born with, she had found other ways to cope. That was just what you did when you started life hearing and then experienced gradual loss of that sense, becoming Hard of Hearing before the deterioration finally left you Deaf at a young age. Vaguely she can still remember what certain sounds should sound like, or rather what they sounded like when she had more hearing. Her mother’s voice when she sang, her father’s laugh, Sarai’s squeal of delight when you surprised her with jelly tarts.

Amaya was thankful to her family that they realized where her illness was heading and decided they needed to come together — as a family — for the youngest child. Sarai and Kenjiro insisted the family learned sign language. Kenjiro even hired a special tutor for Amaya and the family. Amaya quickly got used to using her hands as her voice, but her mother who was lukewarm to accepting what she considered a loss refused at first to learn sign language. Kenjiro claimed that their mother was grieving in her own way, that sometimes adults took much longer to adapt to a change they consider painful than children do. Amaya got it. For her, as her hearing diminished, it was simply life. She cried, she was frustrated but it was eventually just her reality. For her mother, who frequently lamented that her child would never hear her sing again, it was a tragedy she didn’t know how to make sense of as a parent. A sign in her mind that she had failed her child as a mother to protect her from losing one of her senses.

Gradually, her mother did come around. She drilled into Amaya’s head that in an ideal world, Sign Language would be everywhere, but it wasn’t ideal. That Amaya had to cope with a world that wasn’t always kind to the Deaf, and find refuge amongst those who shared or knew the struggle where she could.

Her mother taught her to be sensitive to vibrations around her, and to feel it in her body instead of listening to it. To watch people’s bodies for indications as to whether they whispered or yelled. To watch their lips for what others said to her and how to tell how loud she herself was being if she did choose to speak by feeling it in her body. Most of all, her mother told her something that always stuck with her: that the beauty of having to rely on things outside of the words people verbalized to understand them was that it made it that much harder to lie to someone like Amaya. People could say all sorts of words with the right tone and sometimes right facial expressions, but the body often and usually did betray them.

The Elven warrior’s body language was stiff in a way that suggested her anger, but the movement was too practiced. It gave too much of an aura of “this is how anger should look like” and not enough of a hint of fury held by the woman. When the interpreter mentioned Amaya’s crass suggestion for ‘accommodating a sword’, Amaya smirked when she finally saw it.

A flicker of actual rage, and then that strange thing Amaya hadn’t yet identified.

The elven warrior stormed out of the prison cell then, leaving Amaya just as confused as when the elf first showed up.

It wasn’t until she returned, hours or days later that it was made clearer. This time she was alone and it seemed without her companion she felt less of a need to be as guarded and Amaya was able to tell a little more. The Elven warrior was tense, but in a way that betrayed wariness, though not for the prisoner. She had a slate with her, and no gauntlets on. She sat directly in front of Amaya, her expression stern as she wrote something slowly in careful Katolian script.

‘Janai’ The Elven warrior then pointed at herself, then passed the slate to Amaya.

‘Is that your name?’ Amaya wrote back, displaying the board. Janai nodded. ‘It’s a nice name. I’m Amaya.’ She showed the board to Janai who paused for a long moment and then seemed flustered as she grabbed the board back.

‘I wanted to come alone and not have Kazi with me. An interrogation with a third person isn’t really my way of doing things as it is not what I do.’ Janai hastily scrawled out. It was a bit of a clunky way to phase it — clumsy, really, like a child still learning the rules of the language — but Amaya nodded that she understood when she took the slate from Janai and began writing.

‘Not personable enough with a third party?’ Amaya smirked handing it back.

‘You want me to be personable? Would that get you to finally answer all of our questions?’ She wrote each letter with a hard press onto the slate that threatened to snap the chalk.

‘That depends. Try serenading me first and then maybe we’ll talk.’ Another smirk as she showed the slate. This time it was snatched from her fingers, those golden eyes widening with embarrassment and frustration.

“Are you mocking me?” Janai blurted out loud. Amaya didn’t respond. “You can’t hear, right? That’s why we’re using this slate to communicate and speak to each other.” Amaya heard a faint utterance, saw the shapes Janai’s mouth made enough to catch the gist but feigned ignorance. “You surely are mocking me. Pfft. Humans sometimes, I swear.” 

Janai let out a sharp burst of air through her teeth. Irritation, Amaya noted. It was a long stretch of several minutes before the slate came back. ‘Yes. I was about to win you with my charismatic, human.’ There was a noticeable gap between those words and the following: ‘That is what I believe you call sarcasm in your language?’ It was left as a question. ‘SERIOUSLY,’ she wrote that word larger than the rest and underlined it, ‘why were you in Xadian lands?’

‘That is between me and my King.’

Janai held onto the slate this time after she read that, and Amaya let her gaze filter up to the Elven woman, to her lips, carefully watching, noticing her nostrils flaring as she finished reading the sentence. It seemed it took her a small bit of time to unfurl the meaning of the Katolian script even though she knew how to write it.

“A true soldier is what you are then?” Amaya shrugged at that, sensing she wasn’t getting the slate back, and Janai frowned. “Wait, so you are able to hear me?” Amaya shook her head. “Then how—” Amaya gestured to her lips and Janai caught on. “Ah.” She passed back the slate, now clean. “Do you mind if I talk while you write? I can read and speak your language just fine, but the writing is the most...difficult for me.”

Amaya nodded.

Janai shifted when she noticed after a pause that Amaya was gesturing for her to come closer. She followed the prompt. “I suppose you need me close and in full view.” Amaya nodded again, and the Sunfire Elf sighed, moving so close now that Amaya could take in every detail. Breathe the same air. It was so intimate and yet odd with how business like this Janai woman was being. “Anything else?”

‘Try not to speak too quickly or cover your mouth.’ Amaya wrote back. ‘Don’t turn your head away either.’ Simple instructions. Janai nodded then sighed as she lifted her head, propping her arm up on a knee as she finally met Amaya’s gaze again.

“I am going to be honest with you. If you do not answer our questions when Kazi and I return tomorrow, then Queen Sunfire will most likely demand that we deal with you her way.” Janai paused as she made sure Amaya caught all that. “If she is left to decide how you are dealt with, I cannot guarantee your well being hu—” Janai stumbled over her words, then awkwardly paused. “Amaya.”

Amaya put a hand to her chin and then began to write. ‘We are from enemy forces. Why are you warning me of what your Queen might do? Aren’t you sworn to her?’

“I—”Janai fumbled over her words, “it’s not right. Over the years since Grandmother and our parents were murdered, my older sister—” Janai fumbled, then shook her head, “I’ve said too much already, human. Our internal affairs are not your business, understood?” Amaya nodded. “Just...trust me on this. What we are putting you through now is luxurious. What Queen Sunfire demands happens to you will not be.”

Amaya wrote four words. ‘You’re scared for me.’

“I am not!” Janai hissed. “I just…” She growled. “You saved me. When we fought last you could have let me fall and you would have probably gotten away to safety because they would have looked to see if I was still alive first.” Janai paused on the words, “But instead you saved me and got yourself captured like a fool. Why?”

‘It was the right thing to do.’ Amaya wrote back, her face stern.

“But we, as you noted, are from enemy forces. A dead enemy is better than being captured. Why show me mercy?”

Amaya hesitated before she came to the words she wanted. ‘I didn’t think that you had to die just because we fought. You were following orders, like me.”

Janai’s eyes widened. She snatched the slate back, much to Amaya’s surprise, and when she spoke next, Amaya could see her body tremble.

“My sister holds a lot of hate for your kind,” her voice, judging by how little her chest moved as she formed those words, was kept low as though whispering. Amaya nodded her understanding. What else could she do? Janai barely knew Katolian, nevermind Katolian Sign Language. “If you are brought before her, it will be painful, it could cost you your life, and if not, it may very well drive you into madness.” Janai straightened up, her eyes haunted. “Please, Amaya,” she continued, “consider what I have just said when Kazi and I return tomorrow morning.” With that, Janai left, leaving Amaya to her thoughts.

A Queen full of hate. A sister who seemed to fear her. Anger that seemed driven by loss. A warrior who clearly believed in doing the right thing where she could. A hint of curiosity and mutual understanding and regret. Definitely a lot of regret. It sat on Janai’s shoulders as heavy as Amaya remembered it sitting on Harrow’s when Sarai died, and again when he killed Thunder.

Perhaps Elves and humans weren’t so different after all?


	2. Viren: The Irony of Hypocrisy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viren sees all and knows better than anyone. Even Sarai and Harrow.  
> Sarai might see more of Viren than even he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A look into Viren. I very much see him as someone who justifies his views to the extreme and yet, with extreme prejudice, would criticize people who he thinks are hypocritical. This is mostly focused on Pre-TDP main story line. A sort of “leading up to and during Sarai’s death” glimpse. I know we originally got it from Viren’s view in canon, but I very much see that as being a very...sanitized and Viren friendly portrayal of what happened.
> 
> This one scene that I think could fit in is still Viren centric but paints him in a bit more of a questionable light. Meanwhile I wanted to paint Sarai as being incredibly well meaning but really unable to see beyond the ideals she carries to the reality of the situation.

The worst kind of monsters were those who believed in the concept of noble ideals.

Viren wasn’t sure when he had come to that conclusion exactly. It was a series of things he was sure, as most things often are. When his wife declared to him that she was leaving for Del Bar with his children because she thought he was a monster, he pressed her for what she would do in some of the situations he found himself in.

She only had silence. She fumbled for words for the solutions to problems he solved.

So he made sure his children understood that despite the many various types of people in the world, they generally fell into two categories: those who saw the world for what it was and reached out to find a solution, no matter how imperfect it was, and those who would let the world rot so they can say they were noble and how that somehow made them better as people. Claudia was so much like him that she was quick to see his logic: suffering was suffering, no matter what noble spin you put on it. Taking on more suffering when you didn’t need to made you a fool. Allowing those you care about to suffer when they didn’t need to made you a tormentor. If you had the ability to end pain, even at the cost of hypothetical others you did not know, you would be crazy not to do so. 

Soren, as always, was a little harder to convince on such manners.

Harrow used to see things the way he did too, once. When they were boys growing up carefree, Harrow would often cite some of his father’s decrees as foolish and all about being noble, but it did little to alleviate the woes of the Kingdom. The woes of the downtrodden poor who, as Harrow once put it “might die a terrible death in war, but starvation is also a terrible death.” The young prince recognized that claiming the high ground by not taking the aggressive path wasn’t always “saving people from senseless violence” it was sometimes condemning those same people to a long and pitiful death.

“We need something more...radical.” Harrow would say, and Viren would throw ideas at him. Harrow would get that glint in his eye that meant he was mulling it over, considering it. Viren would drip feed thoughts to Harrow and see some of them reflect back at him. 

“Why should Xadia get all of the resources?” Viren would complain to his friend when they were boys, and Harrow would look at him with a stern expression.

“Why should anyone not have what they need?” Viren didn’t know this was a tipping point for him and Harrow. Where Viren had embraced the radical for his own benefit, his outlook stopped there. At himself, for himself. Harrow’s did too, once, but when his father became ill, and Sarai’s husband died and Sarai became as constant of a presence to Harrow as Viren was, there was a shift from two boys grumbling about how they feel cheated of things they felt entitled, to a King who realized there were a great deal of many people who were being taken advantage of. A King who realized shifting the type of exploitation didn’t change the fact that someone was being exploited. 

Viren on the other hand? With time, with age he doubled down on the ideology of victors and the fallen. That there was always a loser and a winner and to win, that meant making sure someone loses.

This world view shift Harrow underwent —from Katolis first to people first —was the scary part. Pragmatism taught Viren that he who lives longest and best wins. So to offer food to Duren when they had so little to spare, even if it was a gesture of noble intent? All Viren saw were people like him who would suffer for a King’s sense of meaningless noble pride.

The worst kind of monsters were those who believed in the concept of noble ideals and would let others suffer so they could take some sort of moral high ground.

“Harrow told me it was you who came up with this plan.” He had expected Sarai of all people to be the most vocally against him. “We need to talk, Viren.” He regarded her like he did any other dangerous enemy. Cautiously, carefully, sizing her up so he knew what he might be getting himself into. “You need to call it off.”

“I won’t. It’s a creative solution.” Viren defended. “One that will save lives.”

“By killing an innocent creature!” Sarai chastised.

“I understand that Sarai, really,” he reached out for her, his hand on her arm, “but it’s one creature to how many thousands of equally as innocent people?”

“That doesn’t make it right.” Sarai noted. “What if it’s the last of its kind or its family?”

“Fifty thousand people, Sarai.”  
“It never asked for this.” She paused. “We put ourselves here.”

“Who are the ‘we’ in question?”  
“Viren…” Sarai sighed.  
“I don’t think the citizens signed up to starve for Duran’s sake, did they?”

“They didn’t, but they needed our help and they came to us.” She was frowning at him now, in that way she did when she thought he was being a bit pushy. “It would be wrong not to do what we can.”

“Which was nothing! We aren’t in the position to help!” He held Sarai’s gaze. “Harrow just signed to their deaths by pledging to help Duran the way he did.” Viren’s eyes hardened like steel. “This saves them and the one hundred thousand who would have died in Duran had we not offered help.”

“He was trying to do the right thing as a Just King, Viren! We can’t just turn our eyes away from suffering and only look after ourselves!”

“Oh, and are you going to let yourself be the first to suffer? Will you let yourself and your sons starve before any one of your so called precious citizens?”

“Leave Callum and Ezran out of this!” She hissed.

“You and Harrow wouldn’t, would you?” Viren barely spoke over a whisper but he could tell, by how Sarai drew back as if she had been struck, by how her eyes narrowed and her lips pulled into a scowl that he had been right.

“Don’t tell me what we wouldn’t do for our precious Katolis, Viren. You know nothing.”

“What I know, my Dear Queen,” he barbed, “is that the average street urchin is as expendable as the wooden practice lance you broke in your frustration over this mission during your morning training.” He goaded, watching her tense. “You keep telling Harrow that he needs to follow this foolish ideal of justice that you have in your head. That it will make him a great man, but will it? Everything’s easier when you don’t have any skin in the game, isn’t it?” 

That got Sarai to stop. Her eyes narrowed as she drew her hand away. “Very well. We’ll do it your way, Viren.” She hissed as she stormed away. She didn’t agree but she would follow. That was enough for Viren to call it a victory.

That victory was fleeting when he found himself, days later, holding a wounded Sarai in his arms. The monster of nightmares, Thunder, circled back, haughty, thinking he had killed them both and Viren made hardly a sound otherwise as he watched the dragon fly by. The magma titan, the dragons, the elves that caused their exile to begin with. If the human kingdoms had the abundance of Xadia in the first place, they wouldn’t be here.

He wouldn’t be here, holding his best friend’s wife in his arms as he felt blood soak through his clothes. 

His thoughts were interrupted by a gloved hand on his cheek and his gaze was brought down to Sarai’s as she coughed, wet and bloody.

“They’ll know…” she strained to talk, “Callum, Ezran, will they know that…”

“That you love them both. Yes. Harrow and I will make sure of it.” Viren pleaded, then added, more softly, “You’ll make sure of it. I’m making sure we both get home. Hold still, I think I have something that~”

“You had a point.”  
He felt the hair on his neck stand on end. “Sarai?”  
“And...I kind of hate you for it.”  
He swallowed harshly. “About the magma titan?”

“I wonder if... part of you is happy, Viren.” Viren frowned. “You were always telling Harrow that I…” her hand shook at his face, “kind of get in the...way.”

“You heard that?”  
“I did.” She rasped.

“Even if we go back, that’s not going to change, is it?” She was silent. “Sarai, you know I haven’t ever steered Harrow wrong. Imagine how much stronger all of Katolis would be if you and Opeli stopped sowing dissent whenever I gave Harrow advice.” He swore he got a faint chuckle at that, and frustration bloomed.

“Even now, Viren?” Sarai coughed. “Are you still that scared of not having control over what happens to your life?” She gave him a faint smile, sad, lonely, her hand reaching up to gently cup his face. “I guess you’re still that young street urchin hoping magic, power, and your lucky friendship with the prince would win you a way out of the misery you grew up in.” His eyes widened as he gazed down at her.

“I co-could save you right now, you know.” He interrupted, stuttering over his words, tripping over them. He was refusing to give that question a proper answer, refusing to acknowledge her sharp insight all together. “If I did, would you admit that I was right? That I always was right?” Viren pressed, his brow furrowing.

Sarai gave another breathless laugh, her eyes blinking closed for a long time. “If you always need to be right, Viren,” her unfocused eyes landed on him, “You’re not, and you never will be.” 

“Pity.” Viren made a decision then. He stopped looking through his supply pack for something to heal her, instead watching intense pain glaze over the silent fury in her eyes. Then as she began to grow colder, he watched the light of life fade. Then he saw it, that realization that he was really going to let her bleed out and do nothing. The desperation that all felt at death’s door no matter how haughty they were.

“No…” Was all she could muster with that last breath.

The worst kind of monsters were those who ignored their own hypocrisy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was editing this, I couldn’t help but add to it in a way that was very informed by post-covid quarantining me watching the world around me. Namely people’s tendencies to not see beyond their own “back yard” so to speak and only think about how something impacts them personally in the immediate now. Folks aren’t thinking about stuff like, even if only a small number of deaths are happening — if most of those are for highly specialized roles in society like say doctors and nurses — how that is bad news for everyone for a potential of literal decades. Stuff you can’t see if all you’re doing is looking at numbers on a page and the lifestyle you’re use to being kept from you.
> 
> I kind of see Viren as being much of the same way in his viewpoint. It’s very human.
> 
> And that folks is the end of this fic and probably this little series as well unless I get struck by the writing bug again.
> 
> Anyways, please read and review and let me know how you think.

**Author's Note:**

> And that was this little diddy. Please leave a review and I’ll see you on the next chapter. :)


End file.
